Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Prayer Series 5 - A Time to Pray

by Dina Sleiman

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray
continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s
will for you in Christ Jesus. ~1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

“Today we’re going to talk about prayer.” The youthful pastor
glanced over the faces of the congregation lining the pews. One by one
smiles turned to frowns of guilt and remorse. Several sets of eyes
glazed over with disinterest, while others turned away from him. A
sweet, elderly lady in the front row continued to gaze up with a
beatific grin.

He rubbed his hands together in
anticipation. This should be good. “How many of you have heard a sermon
before that instructed you to rise early each morning and pray?”

Every hand in the audience shot up. “How many of you have tried to do this?”

Over half the hands stayed in the air. “And how many have succeeded?”

As
he suspected, only five or six remained, including the saintly
white-haired woman up front. “Well, I have good news for you. Jesus
liked to pray at night.”

A few sighs met his ears, followed by a murmured, “Thank God.”

The pastor chuckled. “Different question. How many of you have been taught that you should set aside an hour a day to pray?”

Again
every hand rose. “And how many of you actually pray an hour a day.”
All hands fell. Even his friend in the front row lowered her wrinkled
one and wobbled it back and forth to indicate hit and miss. Then one
brave soul in the back raised his hand high. Several nearby
parishioners glared at him and grumbling exploded about the building.

Oh,
great. The last thing he needed was to get in trouble with the senior
pastor. Again. “Settle down everyone. Today we’re going to talk about a
different approach to prayer.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Would
it surprise you to know that every school morning for almost nine
years I’ve had a devotional time with my children? Often when I
mention that to people, I’m met by disbelief, glares, or guilt. But
we’ve found a simple formula that works for us. And if ever one child is
running late, another will fuss at them because they love our prayer
time. They crave that special moment to start the day.

However, we do not wake up early, and we don’t spend an hour. Allow me to share our recipe for prayer success.

1) Keep it short: Our prayer time is five minutes long.
2)
Build it into your daily routine: We pray every morning by
the front window right before they have to catch the bus.
3) Have a plan: We say the Lord’s Prayer together, then I
read a 5-15 verse passage of scripture from a specified book. Finally, one of us closes with a prayer for our day .

Perhaps
that sounds too simple. Too easy. But prayer is meant to be enjoyed. Not dreaded. Let’s
look at these simple steps in more detail.

Keep it short.
When you first attempt to enter into a daily habit of prayer, start
simple. Choose a reasonable goal that you feel confident you can
conquer. Five minutes a day. Ten at the most. Once this becomes a habit
and you begin to enjoy your prayer time, chances are you will find this
time too short and want to pray longer. But take it easy on yourself
and start out slow.

Build it into your daily routine.
What do you do everyday? Have a cup of coffee in the morning and read
the newspaper? Check your email when you get home from work? Read
before you go to bed? Take a lunch break? Go running? If you’re super
busy then what about drive to work? Or take a shower? Choose one of
these times and add your five minutes of prayer to it. Once it
successfully becomes a habit and you are enjoying it, consider
extending it, or adding a second, and later a third time.

Have a plan: It certainly doesn’t have to be the same
as my family’s plan. Maybe you’d like open with a worship song, read a
devotional, listen quietly, and close with an out loud prayer. Maybe
you’d like to read a scripture and meditate on it and then journal about
it. Maybe you’d like to begin with a time of thanksgiving, then pray
for friends, and finally for yourself. You might enjoy trying something
different such as deep breathing, repeating a single scripture, and
imagining meeting with God to talk about your day. Traditional folks
might like to use a liturgical prayer and light a candle. Our more
charismatic friends might want to incorporate praying in the spirit or
even dancing. The plan is only to help you, and you get to set it. One
day you might want to change it, or scrap it completely. No problem! But
a plan will help you see how you can easily fill that time. In fact,
before long you’ll find that five minutes is not nearly long enough.

And
this is just a starting point to help you enjoy your prayer time. Soon every hand in our audience
might go up when the pastor asks who prays an hour a day. The goal is
not to sit miserably, whiling away the time. The goal is to enjoy God’s
presence so that you seek it more and more. To long to meet with him
again. To dream of those moments. To pray without ceasing.

Because you want to!

Do
you have a prayer routine that you’d be willing to share with us? What
helps you to enjoy your time with God? If you don’t have a regular
prayer time, what might help you establish one?

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About Me

Jesus is central to everything we do, and the Holy Spirit is welcome in our services. We invite you to join us
any Sunday at our casual, family oriented congregation. Please visit our website for more information.

Christi Sleiman: Acts 2 member on the go, college engineering student, overseas missionary, and children's worker. Visit Christi's blog here.Pastor Rob Stevenson:Our beloved founding pastor. Although he graduated to heaven in 2013, he lives on in all of our hearts.